Civil liberties in the United Kingdom are part of UK constitutional law and have a long and formative history. This is usually considered to have begun with Magna Carta of 1215, a landmark document in British constitutional history. Development of civil liberties advanced in common law and statute law in the 17th and 18th centuries, notably with the Bill of Rights 1689. During the 19th century, working-class people struggled to win the right to vote and join trade unions. Parliament responded with new legislation beginning with the Reform Act 1832. Attitudes towards suffrage and liberties progressed further in the aftermath of the first and second world wars. Since then, the United Kingdom's relationship to civil liberties has been mediated through its membership of the European Convention on Human Rights. The United Kingdom, through Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, led the drafting of the Convention, which expresses a traditional civil libertarian theory.see e.g. the Praemble to the Convention, which states the Convention is there to secure "effective political democracy". It became directly applicable in UK law with the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998.
A number of legislative changes affecting civil liberties have been debated and enacted since the late 20th century. The Identity Cards Act 2006 was repealed, largely on civil liberty grounds, and the UK does not have a central civilian registry and there are no identification requirements in public. Legislative changes affecting civil liberties were justified by appeals to public safety and National Security, hastened on by crises such as the September 11 attacks, the 7/7 bombings and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom led to the introduction of the Coronavirus Act 2020, which was described by former Justice of the Supreme Court Lord Sumption as "the greatest invasion of personal liberty in [the UK's] history." Nonetheless, vaccines offered through the national immunisation programme in the UK are not mandatory; and vaccinations are also not currently mandatory in the UK during a pandemic. United Kingdom citizens have a negative right to freedom of expression under the common law. Furthermore, a guarantee of freedom of expression is contained in statute in Article 10 of the Human Rights Act. However, there are exceptions including threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior intending or likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress or cause a breach of the peace (which has been used to prohibit racist speech targeted at individuals).Public Order Act 1986 Gun ownership is considered a privilege, not a right, and firearms regulation in the United Kingdom is strict. Members of the public may own certain firearms for the purposes of sport shooting, recreation, hunting or occupational purposes, subject to licensing. Abortion in the United Kingdom is permitted on certain grounds, which are typically interpreted liberally, although the underlying laws are dated and authoritarian. Capital punishment in the United Kingdom has been abolished.
The relationship between human rights and civil liberties is often seen as two sides of the same coin. A right is something you may demand of someone, while a liberty is freedom from interference by another in your presumed rights. However, human rights are broader. In the numerous documents around the world, they involve more substantive moral assertions on what is necessary, for instance, for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", "to develop one's personality to the fullest potential" or "protect inviolable dignity". "Civil liberties" are certainly that, but they are distinctly civil, and relate to participation in public life. As Professor Conor Gearty writes,
Civil liberties is another name for the political freedoms that we must have available to us all if it to be true to say of us that we live in a society that adheres to the principle of representative, or democratic, government.Conor Gearty, Civil Liberties (2007) Clarendon Law Series, Oxford University Press, p.1
In other words, civil liberties are the "rights" or "freedoms" which underpin democracy. This usually means the right to vote, the right to life, the prohibition on torture, security of the person, the right to personal liberty and due process of law, freedom of expression and freedom of association.Care should be taken with such definitions. Much more "underpins" democracy than civil and political rights. Capacity for public participation goes into the social and economic: see, e.g. Jeremy Waldron, 'Social Citizenship and the Defence of Welfare Provision' (1993) in Liberal Rights: Collected papers 1981-91, Cambridge University Press, Ch.12; Also, the language of rights, liberties, freedoms, etc, etc, is inherently vague and the divisions between different rights in various documents are inevitably meaningless (e.g. is the right to liberty different from a fair trial, and does it matter?), and simply express country's cultural and historical preferences. At the core all these things come down to the mediation of relations between people, whether for power or resources or between individuals or the state. See, e.g. Alan Gewirth, Human Rights: Essays on Justification and Applications (1982); he puts forth the formula that any right can be put in the form of X claiming right Y against Z
Foundations
Magna Carta (1215), supported what became the writ of habeas corpus, trial by one's peers, representation of nobility for taxation, and a ban on retroactive punishment. The Case of Proclamations (1610) decided that "the King by his proclamation or other ways cannot change any part of the common law, or statute law, or the customs of the realm" and that "the King hath no prerogative, but that which the law of the land allows him." Dr. Bonham's Case (1610), decided that "in many cases, the common law will control Acts of Parliament". This may have influenced Marbury v. Madison (1803) which led to judicial review in the United States. The Petition of Right (1628), established the illegality of taxation without parliamentary consent and prohibited arbitrary imprisonment. Habeas Corpus Act 1679, safeguarded individual freedom against unlawful imprisonment with right to appeal. Bill of Rights 1689, Claim of Right Act 1689, asserted certain rights of Parliament and the individual, and limited the power of the monarch—the result of the Glorious Revolution. The Second Treatise on Representative Government (1689) outlines John Locke's ideas for a more civilised society based on natural rights and contract theory.
Enlightenment
Ashby v White (1703) 1 Sm LC (13th Edn) 253, right to vote cannot be interfered with by a public official. Armory v Delamirie (1722) K.B., 1 Strange 505, 93 ER 664, right to property that you find. Entick v Carrington (1765), right against arbitrary search and seizure; Lord Camden, quoting almost verbatim from John Locke, held that man entered society to secure his "property" (lives, liberties and estates). His principle was that the individual could do anything not prohibited by law, and the state could do nothing but that which was authorised by law. R v Knowles, ex parte Somersett (1772) 20 State Tr 1; (1772) Lofft 1, abolition of slavery, for "the air of England has long been too pure for a slave, and every man is free who breathes it." However, this did nothing for the colonies. Trials of John Wilkes.
Democracy
Slave Trade Act 1807, abolished the slave trade in the British Empire following a Parliamentary campaign led by William Wilberforce. Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829, restored the civil rights of Catholics. Great Reform Act 1832, enfranchised slightly more property holders, rationalised the borough and county seat system. Slavery Abolition Act 1833, abolished slavery throughout the British Empire. Bird v Jones (1845) 7 QB 742, right to liberty, freedom of movement (across bridges). Second Reform Act 1867, loosened the property qualification, extended the franchise to around a third of men. Conspiracy, and Protection of Property Act 1875, decriminalised trade union activity (freedom of association). Beatty v Gillbanks (1882) 9 QBD 308, the Salvation Army wanted to campaign against alcohol with the help of a brass band in Weston-super-Mare. Local brewers formed a so-called "skeleton army", and threatened to disrupt the march with force. The police, fearing for public order told the Salvation Army to call it off, but they went ahead. Then the police forced them, by breaking up the brass band. Field J in the High Court held that there was no right of the police to do so. The Salvation Army was associating "for religious exercises among themselves, and for a religious revival". No one could "say that such an assembly [is] in itself an unlawful one". Stopping the march would be like saying "that a man may be convicted for doing a lawful act—there is no authority for such a proposition."(1882) 9 QBD 308, 313-4; Compare now, Hammond v Director of Public Prosecutions EWHC 69 (Admin), where a homophobic preacher in Bournemouth was arrested for breach of peace after people started pushing and throwing water over him; and Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions Crim Law Rev, where Fundamentalist Christians preaching on Cathedral steps, attracting 100 stirred up people were removed for "breach of the peace". Sedley LJ held that in contravention to Art.11 ECHR and Beatty Third Reform Act in 1884 and the Redistribution of Seats Act the following year extended the same voting qualifications in the towns to the countryside and established the present-day one-member constituency as the normal pattern for Parliamentary representation. Trade Disputes Act 1906, removed liability in tort for trade unions going on strike, after the House of Lords in a series of cases invented ways to bankrupt unions for any action.see, Taff Vale case, Quinn v Leatham and South Wales Mines; the first of these was the direct cause for the formation of the Labour Party: to lobby for its reversal. Nairn v The University Court of the University of St Andrews, (1907) 15 SLT 471, 473, per Lord McLaren, it is "a principle of the unwritten constitutional law of this country that men only were entitled to take part in the election of representatives to Parliament." Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants v Osborne AC 87, per Lord Shaw and Lord James, any contributions by trade unions to Members of Parliament were "unconstitutional and illegal".Although clearly these cases are anachronistic to the highest degree and moribundly conservative, political donations by unions and business alike; see for instance the Companies Act 2006 ss.362-379. Reversed by the Trade Union Act 1913. Representation of the People Act 1918, allowed universal male suffrage for over-21s, and the vote for women over 30. Representation of the People Act 1928, universal suffrage over 21. Liversidge v Anderson AC 206. Crofter Hand Woven Harris Tweed v Veitch AC 435, right to collective bargaining.
Post-World War II
The European Convention on Human Rights was drafted by Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, at the time, their Chairman of the Council of Europe's legal and administrative division. Clement Attlee's accession to the Convention in 1950. The British Empire began granting independence to all its Colonies from India, to Africa to the Pacific. The last instance of capital punishment in the United Kingdom was carried out in 1964. It was formally abolished under the Human Rights Act 1998. Harold Wilson allows individual petitions to Strasbourg in 1968.